Chapter Text
Rook... could be a problem.
She is a client. Caterina's client. Her last client.
That she is disarming is irrelevant. That he needs to live with her, with all of them, in this absurd floating ruin in the fade where the light never changes and it is all one endless day, forever—it's an unusual job, but it's a job. There were no days in the Ossuary either. That much, at least, he's used to by now. Everything else is still…an adjustment.
He’s adjusted before; he'll adjust again.
And it’s not just her, really. They’re becoming quite a collection, even if he himself remains the oddest of the lot. He doesn’t mean to study them all as if they were targets, it's not… they're fine. But he hasn’t shared space with so many others like this in a very long time. And they're just all… there. All of the time. No more or less a threat than any other person he's needed to work with to see a contract through, but so much more present.
Harding, who forgets to take her finger tab off so regularly that he wonders if she sleeps with it. Davrin, who is bold enough to appraise Lucanis in an open stare instead of in quick glances when they think he can’t see, as the others do. Bellara who is never still; Emmrich in inaudible murmured monologue to himself as often as he isn’t; Neve who regarded them all with cool indifference but brightened in a smile despite herself when Bellara drew near.
And then there’s Rook.
“—wasn’t what I would have picked, I guess,” she's saying. He’s not sure why they’re here, it's none of their nights to cook dinner — and grazie al Hacedor because the last time Harding was up Lucanis would probably have dumped his bowl into the fade sky if he could have been absolutely certain it wouldn’t come back as some form of vengeful potato demon — and it won’t be ready for some time yet, but Rook, and Harding, and Emmrich linger at the dining table for no particular reason as he works. It’s not…unpleasant, the easy back and forth of it. For the most part, at least, they're content to let him peel and slice and listen. “Some of the other recruits ended up with a lot worse, though, so I can’t complain.”
Harding blinks, surprised. “I thought Varric gave you that nickname.”
Rook snorts into her cup. "No, just adopted it. ‘Been at this shit way too long to waste my time redoing perfectly good work, kid.’” Her smile is fond and far away. “I got it from the senior Warden in charge of the recruits the year I took my joining. It wasn't a compliment."
"No?"
One side of her mouth lifts in a crooked half-smile. "No. He used to say that every time he thought he knew what the fuck I was doing, I went sideways." She shrugs. "It stuck."
Emmrich lets out a soft 'hmm'. "Perhaps a bit complementary. It's a powerful piece, after all."
"Is it? I don't play. It's the one with the little hat?"
Emmrich blinks at her, aghast. "That is the cleric. The rooks are the outermost pieces, it's one of the more versatile..."
He goes on and Rook listens, her chin in her hand and her eyes crinkled at the corners. It’s a minute or two before she notices Lucanis has continued to dice but his eyes are on her and not the squash. When she does, a shallow dimple flashes in the cheek not hidden behind her fingers; she winks.
"—granted, early on its movements can be more limited, but by the endgame, very valuable. A lone rook and king can force a checkmate, you know, but with a cleric or knight one must—"
Lucanis learns a lot more about chess than he intended to by the time the meal rolls around. He's never cared much for it, himself. But Rook listens attentively the whole time, even as the lecture turns gradually toward the nuances of Nevarran rules of play, and gives no indication that she regrets starting this tangent. She nods and 'hmms' in the right places as she sets out the plates, the forks and knives. A setting at Neve’s usual spot, too, he notices. Like always. Lucanis doesn't think it will see use tonight, either.
As the noise grows with the addition of the rest of the group, Rook wanders alongside him. “It’s too bad,” she says, too low to be heard by anyone else over the rising clatter of plates and cutlery and voices. “I like the little hats.”
He turns, but she’s already moved on, setting a jug of water down on the table and leaning in to hear something Bellara is saying to Harding.
Their eyes meet again when he sits, though, a single held moment across the table. Hers crinkle just slightly in the corners once more, a smile tucked into the edges of her mouth, this tiny amusement she’s sharing with him alone in a full room that takes no notice.
And Lucanis feels… he’s not sure what to call it, the odd catch in his throat, the way he feels his own mouth twitch in response. Perhaps it’s just Spite, unfurling at the perimeter of his thoughts in response to her attention, as always. That reaching, seeking stretch—that is certainly the demon. As for the rest….
Well. These moments like this, all of them together, talking over one other, laughing or bickering or swapping stories—he still finds them… unsettling, at times. The ease of it, for all of them, despite having known each other for a matter of weeks only, while Lucanis finds himself knife straight in his chair. Checking the doors. Again. Again, waiting for the threat that has the hairs along the back of his neck prickling to reveal itself. It never does; it isn’t there.
But Rook watches too. He’s noticed her doing it, studies them all behind cool eyes and easy smiles, dips her chin in rueful acknowledgment when her attention sweeps over him and she realizes she’s been noticed. Her secret, and his.
That’s probably it. It will pass.
Lucanis is a professional. Whatever this is, it's fine. It won't be a problem.
Maybe a small problem.
She is, for one thing, tremendously frustrating to try and walk through Treviso with. Every few minutes, it seems, he turns to realize she's no longer off his shoulder but several yards behind, fussing over another stray cat. He thinks she's scratched behind every ear between the Diamond and the Drowned District. The market, at least, he can understand a little better. He remembers standing below those lanterns just like that himself as a boy, thinking they looked like summer glowflies when a breeze came through. So much has changed. It's small comfort that there are things the Antaam have not destroyed, but…it's something, at least. He supposes the way she slows her steps to gaze upwards, or to track a gondola slowly gliding along a canal with her eyes as they pass, isn’t so bad.
Every cat, though. He could swear it is every cat.
Hissandscratch. Rip every claw one two three—
It is good to be home, even in spite of…well. Right now, though, he would really rather they get off the street.
“What about those towers? Does Treviso have a Circle?”
“No. That’s the Università de Treviso.” In their youths, he and Illario used to sneak away to mix among the squares crowded with students at Satinalia or Summerday. Caterina detested it, she would—
No. Not now.
Harding stops halfway up the curved stair to the Diamond’s cupola alongside Rook. “Oh—I’ve heard of it! It’s famous for art, isn’t it? Landscapes?”
“It was. And history.” Lucanis does not join them. They’ll catch up. “Illario tells me most of the students fled to the south when the Antaam came. Antiva City, or Salle.”
“…oh,” from behind him, quietly. Harding has lingered when he glances over his shoulder, face turned out towards the city below.
But Rook is curiously at ease striding along beside him through the upper floors of the Diamond. It's rare to see someone here who isn’t a Crow. Or it was, anyway. A Warden—perhaps never? But Teia rules this space, and she lifts her head as they approach with an openness to an outsider he would have found suspicious before a dragon circled the sky. Strange times, strange company.
Viago, less open. Time has changed much. Not everything. “Mistress Trella?”
They tell them. Lucanis still struggles to reconcile it in his mind, gaatlock in the city, Antaam in the streets. It is ma— So sharp, this one! Spite, circling Teia with an assessing stare. Smells of cinnamon and dead flowers. Does she scratch the same? …maddening. Lucanis might worry he had gone mad in the Ossuary if it wasn’t already so very apparent.
Rook is bent over a map of the city across from Viago, sliding small stones into place to reflect what they’ve learned. She glances askance at him when he silently reaches around her to adjust the placement of a handful of them. “Well take a crack at the Deep Roads, see how you do,” she mutters, so low he’s sure it’s intended for his ears only, but there’s no heat to it. It’s a surprise to both of them, he thinks, when he feels a slight smile tug at his lips.
“They are getting bolder.” Viago scowls at the clusters of markers. “Since the dragon—”
“They are doing what the Antaam do,” Teia interrupts. “We will stop them.”
Rook frowns down at the map, fists on her hips and a thoughtful squint that’s beginning to become familiar. After a moment, she reaches out to tap an area at the southwest edge of the city that’s relatively free of all of their terrible little stones. “Not many canals down here. What is it?”
“People,” says Viago. He’s only partially paying attention, more preoccupied with the heavily infiltrated north. “Apartments, mostly, but many from the center of the city who were driven out of their homes during the occupation fled there. Shacks are spilling beyond the walls, now”
“Hm. Before that?”
Teia cuts an indecipherable look to Rook across the table. “Slums, and the alienage.”
One eyebrow arches and Rook's head tilts as if turning the thought over. The fall of her pulled-back hair catches briefly on the point of her ear. “And they don’t want it,” she says, slowly.
“They want the canals.” Viago is impatient, and Lucanis must admit, he’s not quite sure where Rook's going with this either. Teia has returned her attention to the map.
“Easier movement, sure. Makes sense.” Rook’s fingers trace along the lines of the canals, past the Diamond, the opera house, drifting towards the bay. Her eyes are slightly narrowed, mouth twisted to one side. “But the space—and this is what out here, farmland?—they’re not interested. Why?”
“Vineyards,” Lucanis corrects. “Mostly grapes and olives.”
“They bring their supplies by ship and take what else they want from our people. They don’t need to waste their time overseeing our vintages.”
“That’s a Crow talking.” She raises her palms beside her shoulders, supplicant, at the sharp way Teia and Viago lift their heads as one to look at her. “No offense meant. But the Crows—you keep your own houses, right? And how many in each… tens? A hundred?”
Lucanis shakes his head. “Rarely so many. Valisti is the biggest; they’re perhaps 50 strong?”
“Less, now,” says Viago, brusque.
Dead little crows, pluck pluck pluck. Of course. Less, now. Lucanis curls his hands in to fists against the rebellious twitch in his fingers.
Rook’s own have found their way back to her hips, although she does glance at him briefly, aside. “Right. So you can stay tight. Keep your people close, mind your territory… you consolidate. But the Antaam—” A quick nod of her chin at the map, at the dense cluster of stones. “They’re not a house. They’re an army. That’s a lot of mouths to feed, and bringing even half of your supplies in by ship isn't efficient for this kind of force. They’ve had control of the city for months, they have the numbers—they ought be expanding by now.”
He can see it, now, the way the Antaam forces ripple out from the garrison like a rock dropped in a pond, how even these new places the two of them have marked tonight are within the tighter rings. The checkpoints the Antaam have established at the major gates and bridges further from the city center stand out in their distance from one another.
Teia, thoughtful: “But they aren’t.”
“They’re holding ground like you all would. Like Crows.” Rook reaches out to rap her knuckles sharply on the too-open space along the southern wall. “An army that takes a city should be taking all of it, even the slums. It’s just odd, that’s all I’m saying.”
It is odd. Everything is odd, now, so it suits. Lucanis watches Viago come around the table, when they leave not long later. He looks down at the map from the spot where Rook had stood, head angled in thought.
“Clever,” he says, as they approach the eluvian. Harding is waiting for them.
Rook shrugs. “Just different. Wardens don’t hold ground like Crows do. We’re pushing out, or the darkspawn are pushing in, that's it. The Antaam are more like us than like you— either we’re missing something here, or they’re making a mistake.”
Lucanis arches an eyebrow at her. “And the Crows are darkspawn, in this analogy?”
“Well, you smell much better, as a whole. And you do seem marginally more intelligent.” Her returned smile is whip-quick and bright, a flash of dimple and teeth and impishness. “We can work with it.”
On the other side of the eluvian she turns, walks backwards to face him with an earnestness that grasps at his chest in a way he can’t explain. “I mean, it though. Whether it’s on purpose or by accident, we can use this, if we can figure it out. We’ll get Treviso back.”
It's not the deal. The contract is his to fill, and Treviso is the Crow’s to deal with. There is no reason for Rook to act as if this is part of the work he’s been hired to do, certainly no cause to speak of Treviso as resolutely as she does the Evanuris. And yet.
And yet. And yet. And yet. Something about Rook turns Spite to mockery more often than the others. Lucanis grits his teeth and does his best to shut out the indistinct impression of a sneer. Sweet Rook. One Warden to save your city. All your birds could not.
It’s Spite’s goading that sours his tongue. It has to be. She's given him no reason to search for the agenda in her care for his city. Certainly no reason to say, terse and ungraciously, “The Crows can handle Treviso. It's not the Wardens' problem.”
Harding casts a brief glance over her shoulder, but there’s no way for her to see the flicker of expression that crosses Rook’s face with Rook turned around as she is. Lucanis sees it, though. There are moments in which he’s beginning to find her a little less indecipherable, the longer their acquaintance goes on. Surprise, then hurt, then nothing. A polite mask. “Okay,” is all she says, pleasantly, and turns once more to fall into step behind Harding.
The rest of the walk to the Lighthouse is quiet, or at least, Lucanis is. Harding and Rook bounce off each other easily, and Lucanis trails like their silent shadow.
That passing look, the way her lips parted briefly as if to say something and then closed a little more tightly than before, the slight wrinkling between her brows, the downward twitch of a frown—it shouldn’t bother him the way it does. The way it melted away to nothing shouldn't, either, but it does. The whole way back, the rest of the evening, it sits in the back of his mind and Spite curls himself around it, draws the memory of that look back without warning.
She's a client. He does not need a client’s good opinion. He shouldn't wonder, care, if a client—likes him.
Lucanis has caused an offense for which he ought to apologize, a little rift he wants to smooth, and that wanting nags at him late into the night.
She's a problem.